Explore Pesaro

The Ducal Palace is the Renaissance palace on Piazza del Popolo in Pesaro, begun for Alessandro Sforza in the mid-15th century over houses of the Malatesta and enlarged by the Della Rovere dukes in the 16th. It has housed the prefecture since Italian unification; guided tours show the Salone Metaurense with its painted coffered ceiling of about 1616.

The civic museums of Pesaro have occupied Palazzo Mosca, the town house of a merchant family ennobled in the city, since 1936. Five rooms on the first floor show paintings and decorative arts from several centuries, led by Giovanni Bellini's altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin from about 1475, alongside the city's collection of maiolica.

Pesaro Cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption, stands on the site of early Christian churches: beneath its floor lie two superimposed mosaic pavements of the 4th and 6th centuries, which visitors can see by booking a slot. The plain brick Romanesque facade dates from 1282–1312, while the interior was remodelled in neoclassical style around 1900.

Teatro Rossini is the opera house of Pesaro, opened in the former ducal stables as the Teatro del Sole in 1637 and rebuilt by Pietro Ghinelli in 1816–1818. It reopened with Rossini conducting La gazza ladra and later took the composer's name. Its horseshoe hall with four tiers of boxes is the main stage of the Rossini Opera Festival in August.